by Nick Adams
“Cheap bastard,” he said, goading me in return. “Sucker punch me in front of all these people. Go ahead. I dare you.”
“Evan,” my dad said. “This man will be in the cruiser in five minutes. Let him shoot his mouth off.”
“Screw that,” I said, holding my gaze on the guy. “He’ll be on a stretcher when I’m done with him.”
“You’re pretty tough while I’m kneeling,” the guy said. “Big man. Big gun. Big mouth.”
Rather than getting angry or flustered, I smiled at him. Kneeling before me was a genuine fighter, not just some mouthpiece. A flood of energy was coursing through me. This was the sort of guy whose prideful defiance kept my job interesting. It had been a few weeks since I’d had a good fight. I needed the practice, and he needed a good beating.
“Okay,” I said. “Get up.”
My dad stepped toward me and I held out my right arm to keep him from getting any closer.
“This isn’t necessary, Evan.”
I kept my eyes locked on the driver, said, “It’s no fun going down without a fight. I get it. So stand up, chief. Take your shot.”
He kept on glaring, doing his best version of thinking. Pondering his very limited options. He could avoid an immediate beating by staying down until the police took him into custody. But that would only spare him in the shortest of terms. From then on his life would go from bad to worse at an alarming rate. His days would be filled with court dates and cavity searches. Holding cells and prison food. Evenings spent locked in a cage, getting to know a new boyfriend. The only alternative to that chain of misery was to heed the momentary primal response of fight or flight. He didn’t look like much of a runner. Fighting was his last viable option. The last free decision he’d make for years to come.
It was bleak, for sure. But I didn’t feel bad for him. He should have considered all that before he tried to grab a kid.
“Get up,” I said, taking another step back, giving him some room. “You want to fight, don’t you?”
He hesitated, though it was clear that he was on the verge of taking the bait. He was trapped. Out of options. And he was getting sick of me fast.
“Come on,” I said. “You gonna stay there with your lip quivering till the cops get here? You ran your mouth. Now back it up. Get up, you worthless lop of shit.”
His expression changed in a flash. His mind was made up. He had been eyeing my gun as I watched him. Probably daydreaming of using it on me and my dad. He got to his feet slowly with a grunt, trying to sell the false appearance of being slow. Then he rushed me fast. An all or nothing charge.
Stupid move.
As I expected.
I did two things at once. With my left hand I blocked his reach with a hard hammer fist. While my left hand was dropping and smashing into his outstretched hands, I brought my right fist up fast. It was a huge uppercut that should have leveled him. But in my excitement my aim was off. My fist glanced off the edge of his jaw. Not the most accurate punch I’d ever thrown. But still enough to stun him and send him backwards.
He staggered back and steadied himself and then made a second lunge. I stood waiting. He was the angry bull type, lashing out with rage rather than strategy. He took his fear and anger at being caught and humiliated and he sent it all hurling in my direction. He was well over two hundred pounds, and I was around three hundred. Over five hundred pounds smashed together. His chin was low, near his chest. Probably because it was hurting from the first hit. Which now left the top of his head low and exposed. I caught his temple with a roundhouse right and stepped back and watched him fold like an accordion. He went down all wobbly and slumped over on his side.
Dad moved up beside me. Put his hand on me as he said, “That’s enough. He’s going to jail as it is. No need to give him brain damage.”
I nodded, catching my breath. “He hasn’t got much to spare anyway.”
Then someone else came up close to my side. They were almost touching me. I was tense. Hyper aware of my surroundings. Expecting to be attacked by some unseen foe. I looked and it was only Linda Milton.
“Was that you shooting?” she asked.
“Him,” I said, pointing to Dad.
Linda looked back and forth with her mouth open. Then she said, “Want me to tape this guy for you?”
“Be my guest,” I said and stepped forward and pushed the guy over with my foot. Rolled him like a big blob of lifeless dough. Then put some weight on the small of his back. He flattened out, groaning, and Linda Milton put a strip of tape around his ankles. There was no point in taping his hands. He was too dazed to know who or where he was.
Dozens of people were gathering around closer. They had been standing off in a wide circle, keeping a safe distance while they took in the action. Now they were pushing in closer.
From behind me I heard someone call, “Thank you.” It turned out to be the victim’s mother.
I turned around but couldn’t see her through the growing crowd. I sensed Frank near my leg. Reached down to pet his head. A lot of people were looking at us. It was a little awkward. Getting worse by the second.
Then someone came forward. Just some random gray-haired guy. He held out his hand and said, “Well done, young man. Hell of a job.”
I nodded to him. Shook his hand quickly.
Then someone else started to clap. Then A few more people joined in. It grew until there must have been forty or fifty people applauding me and Dad and Frank.
Over the years I’ve been commended by plenty of guests. Usually for more mundane reasons. Like helping to set up a tent or light a campfire on a damp day. People are always very thankful when I toss out a drunk or some other troublemaker. So thankful that they sometimes cheer and laugh and breathe a loud sigh of relief. Once I was even hugged frantically by a woman for chasing away a young bear that was feasting on the contents of an unlatched cooler.
But I’d never experienced anything like that round of applause. Not even close.
5
Jeremy Conner was shaken but okay. Someone got a bandage from a backpacking first aid kit and treated a raspberry on his forearm. He didn’t cry or anything. Just stood there looking confused, like, what the heck just happened?
My Uncle Danny arrived within minutes. Three state troopers followed soon after. The driver was coherent enough to attempt resisting the handcuffs. Which probably only added to his prison stay. Two troopers took the suspects to county lockup. The third one stayed to help Uncle Danny interview all the witnesses.
There were plenty of notes to take. Fourteen people claimed to have witnessed the majority of the incident from various angles. Which was a decent number. We had around two hundred guests, but they were spread across a fairly large area.
Forgetting to turn on my camera turned out to be a nonissue. The consensus of the witnesses was unanimously in my favor. A terrible tragedy had been averted by swift and concise action.
Case closed.
As for the backstory, Jeremy’s mother, Rianne, was more than happy to share all the juicy details with anyone willing to listen.
In a nutshell, she had remarried within the last year. In doing so she’d taken a nice step up in the world into a higher tax bracket. Her former husband, Jeremy’s father, was jealous and resented paying support for a child he felt estranged from. According to her, he had been increasingly hostile in recent months. It would have been easy for him to find a few goons on his construction crew willing to kidnap his son for some extra cash. Evidently that hostility had finally spilled over into a definitive course of action.
I stood there listening to her for as long as I could stand. As she droned on I started hearing the Brady Bunch theme in my head, with my own personal spin on the lyrics.
That’s the way we became the Dysfunction Bunch.
“You’ve got to find my ex-husband,” Rianne kept saying to Uncle Danny. “Send someone to get him now. Before he tries something worse.”
“Troopers are looking for him,” he assur
ed her.
“I won’t feel safe until he’s locked up.”
“Worry about Jeremy for now,” Uncle Danny reminded her several times. “Concentrate on making him feel safe.”
I kept an eye on Rianne the whole time the witnesses were giving statements. She looked to be in her mid or late twenties. About my age. There was no doubt in my mind that she was thoroughly enjoying her fifteen minutes of limelight. She would ramble until gradually there was no one left to talk to. She’d fade off toward her campsite. Away from the hub of activity. Then return again for another round of dramatic expressions of her shock and fear and gratitude. I accepted her thanks graciously the first two times. By the third time it was getting old.
The final straw was when she got her kid involved. She pushed Jeremy over and compelled him to thank me. He stood there looking embarrassed, eyes down. Like he wanted to crawl under a rock and hide. He was five years old. No way could he comprehend the gravity of the situation. All he knew is that he was scooped up and then dropped. And now his mother was pushing him up to some big guy he didn’t know, telling him to thank the guy for something he didn’t understand.
Definitely not the way for Rianne to stay on my good side.
“Tell Mr. Warner how thankful you are,” she said.
The kid said nothing. He wanted to disappear.
“Go on,” she said, giving him another push. “Thank him.”
“Don’t,” I said calmly, looking her straight in the eyes.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t drag me into this charade. Your kid already has enough shit ahead of him in life as it is. Don’t include me on his list of miserable memories.”
That said, I turned my back on her. Started to walk away. Even then I was prepared to let it go.
But she wasn’t.
She zipped around me fast, in a wide circle, and cut me off.
“Excuse me?” she said. “What charade?”
I stopped, working hard to hold my tongue. Not for her. For the kid.
Shy kid. Father heading to jail. Mother a total drama queen. Who knows how many stepfather’s he’ll end up having before he’s old enough to escape the nightmare.
“What charade?” she asked again. Her hand was on her heart. Like she was thanking the academy for a great award.
I said, “You really don’t know when to quit.”
“And you have no manners. We were only trying to thank you.”
“Give me a break. The kid doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and he doesn’t have to thank me for anything. That’s like saying he should apologize for being victimized. Total bullshit. And it’s all on you now.”
“Well,” she exhaled. “We were honestly trying to express our gratitude. But I can see—”
“Stop,” I said. “Give it up. The game is over. A blind guy could see what you’re doing here.”
“Game? You think this is a game?”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You were probably bored to death before this little soap opera started. Probably hiding in your tent with your iPad, letting your kid entertain himself. Alone. Right?”
“Don’t you dare,” she snapped, pointing her finger up at me.
Bullseye. I’d struck a nerve. Her finger was trembling. But she was still lucky, because if a man had done the same, he’d have lost that finger. Someone would have to put it on ice in a little plastic baggie. Then some doctor would have to go through the trouble of trying to reattach it.
“You about done?” I asked.
“Don’t speak to me that way.”
“That’s it,” I said. “I’m done with you. Pack your crap and hit the road.”
“You have no right to judge me. No right!”
I said, “Yeah, get mad. The truth stings. Spending the weekend camping with the kid wasn’t your idea of fun. Was it? But it was useful for keeping him from his father. Sure. I’ve seen your type before. And now, after what just happened, instead of being genuinely grateful, here you are trying to exploit the situation for every last second of attention you can get. Using the shame and emasculation of your kid to keep the drama rolling. If that’s your brand of parenting, do him a favor and get him neutered. Spare him the longer process of living with you.”
Rianne just stood there. She abandoned the argument and instead wrinkled her face up, trying to force the tears to flow. Trying to make me look like the bad guy for stating the obvious. Even Frank could see what she was up to.
That’s when her new husband stepped up behind her. He put his arm around her and tried to draw her back away from me. Wise decision. He looked sharp and bright. Like he worked in some big office in Boston making important decisions. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing with this twit. There had to be a better woman out in the world somewhere. He probably could’ve thrown a rock and hit a better woman right there at the campground.
Uncle Danny stepped over to me, said, “You’ve made your point, Evan.”
I ignored him. She had started it. Drama was her goal, not mine. I was just giving her what she wanted.
“Be honest,” I said to her. “You didn’t even see those guys watching your kid. You screamed a few seconds after he screamed. You reacted only to the sound. Because you weren’t watching him. You’re all worked up now because deep down you feel guilty. Don’t you?”
That was it. She completely lost it. She gave up trying to cry and screamed like a warrior princess. Broke free from her hubby and lunged at me like Hannibal Lecter.
Uncle Danny reacted fast and intercepted her. Then crowded her back a safe distance.
I held my ground, staring her down coldly. I’m not a big fan of people that manipulate kids, use them as leverage and screw with their heads. It’s just as bad as physical abuse.
Rianne refused to look at me again. Which was fine by me.
Then my dad promptly jumped into PR mode. Went over and tried to explain that my job was very stressful, especially on busy weekends. Rianne stood there blubbering and her hubby was trying to console her while Jeremy, the real victim, got lost in the shuffle. They moved away from me in a little huddle of stressed chatter.
Linda Milton whispered, “Wow, harsh. But I see your point. She is obnoxious.”
I nodded and said, “Shouldn’t you go check on Bob? Make sure he’s still got a pulse?”
“God, I almost forgot in all the hubbub.”
She hurried off and left me standing there with Frank. He leaned against me and I rubbed his ears, telling him he’d done well. He really had.
The remaining state trooper stepped over. Cleared his throat. I looked over at him.
“Do you speak to all your guests that way?”
“Just the ones that deserve it.”
He laughed quietly. “Maybe I went into the wrong line of work. There’s no way I could be that blunt and keep my job.”
“I believe in honesty.”
“So I see.”
“Was I wrong?”
“No. I’d say you hit the nail on the head.”
6
An hour or so after the action, everything was settled. Most of the crowd had melted off to their campsites and activities. Which meant I was able to walk back to my golf cart without any further fanfare or disagreements.
I drove to my cabin and sat on the porch with a glass of iced tea to unwind. Frank took a drink of water and lay down on his outside bed. The excitement hadn’t gotten to him in the least. He was asleep within minutes.
I lit a cigarette. Sat there thinking. Jeremy Conner was the topic of the day, the buzz of all the guests. But I was thinking of something else. Something a year removed. Someone in particular.
Lucy Kurtz.
Two years old. Twenty-six months. Somehow she got out of her family’s tent without anyone knowing. It was after six in the morning before her mother and aunt realized that Lucy was gone and began shouting her name. Within a few minutes the whole campground was awake. People were buzzing. Spreading the word. Calling the g
irl’s name. The place didn’t quiet down again until late that night, when everyone was thoroughly exhausted.
The day played over in my mind. The tension. The fear. The fact that it happened at all was bad. The fact that it happened on my land, under my watch, made it worse. The fact that nothing had been resolved, almost a year later, was salt in the wound. It burned me like few things ever had before.
For a long time I’ve been seriously considering questions of responsibility. Probably since I was sixteen, when I started helping my father police the campground. Life in general does not confuse me. I understand that the strong and the intelligent endure and survive, while the weak fall by the wayside. Through the ages small details have changed, but overall the principal is still the same. Food chains are food chains, regardless of the century. I understand that in theory, as a natural occurrence. A force which manages billions of people and animals. But when that principal comes down to individuals, that’s when I begin to feel uneasy.
Exactly where is the line drawn? Who governs it? Is it a strict border line? Or is it something more flexible, subject to personal interpretation and intervention?
There are seven or eight billion people in the world. That means seven or eight billion possible opinions.
No easy answers.
Personally, I enter this equation near the top of the food chain. I’m a fit male. Larger and stronger than average. Not rich, but financially secure. Only a tiny fraction of the world’s population pose any hint of a threat to me. Hostile billionaires. Pissed off grizzly bears. Special Forces operators. Otherwise, I’m golden. Got it made in the shade.
So why should I feel disturbed? If the point of life is to pass successful genes on to another who will then carry the torch after I die, why should I be bothered by the inevitable failure of the weak to make a splash in this world? Why should it even cross my mind?
And why should I be troubled by the memory of Lucy Kurtz?
I never met the girl. Never laid eyes on her but for the pictures on her missing flyers. I’m not the one that lay sleeping while she crawled from the tent. Or, more likely, was taken from the tent. Why should I wonder if she’s dead or alive? Life has gone on without her. The earth keeps turning in its proper orbit, neither getting so close to the sun that it becomes a fireball, or so far away that it becomes an ice cube. Superficially nothing new has happened. Nothing has changed.